


Blurred Into Blue

by Door



Series: HMS Skypilot [2]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Gen, proto finn/poe, unconscious finn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-30
Updated: 2016-01-30
Packaged: 2018-05-17 06:47:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5858524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Door/pseuds/Door
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rey struggles with the decision to leave.</p><p> <i>"In the end, it wasn’t her choice. Not really. Not when General Organa looked at her calmly and pleadingly, not when she could feel the thrum of something under her breastbone, awake and reaching. She didn’t know what to do with it, but she needed to do something. If Luke Skywalker knew what that something was, if he could help the group she and Finn had apparently thrown their lot in with, then it had to be worth it. Leaving."</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Blurred Into Blue

**Author's Note:**

> This exists in the same post-movie universe as my [other TFA fic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5758375), but you don't need to read it to understand this.
> 
> [winterdoll](http://archiveofourown.org/users/winterdoll) is the best beta and you cannot have her

When the day came to leave, Rey was torn. She’d spent all the years she could remember determined not to leave Jakku, a place which had been home and prison in one. The Resistance base on D’Qar wasn’t home any more than Jakku had been, but it was where Finn was, and Finn was the closest thing to home she knew.

She hadn’t known what it would be like. Back on Jakku, she’d spent hours running flight simulations, every ship she could get data on. She’d even flown one planetside, a small freighter she’d rebuilt. But nothing, none of it had prepared her for flying the Falcon with Finn. For what it would feel like to pilot into the black. 

Which brought her here, to this moment, feeling completely and unexpectedly torn between staying where Finn was and the desperate desire to  _ fly. _

In the end, it wasn’t her choice. Not really. Not when General Organa looked at her calmly and pleadingly, not when she could feel the thrum of something under her breastbone, awake and reaching. She didn’t know what to do with it, but she needed to do  _ something _ . If Luke Skywalker knew what that something was, if he could help the group she and Finn had apparently thrown their lot in with, then it had to be worth it. Leaving. 

She explained this to Finn, calmly, trying to ignore the part of her that thrilled to the thought of flying away. Finn was unconscious still, had been for days now. He’d been in a coma since coming out of the bacta, and a med tech had told her talking to him couldn’t hurt, anyhow. She’d overheard Commander Dameron, BB-8’s master, doing it a few days earlier. Turned out he wasn't as dead as everyone thought.

She hadn’t meant to eavesdrop, but he’d been so up-beat, chatting about the members of the various squadrons he commanded, how he was going to introduce Finn to everyone. Rey still saw Finn’s body, broken and bloody in the snow, whenever she closed her eyes. Heard his anguished scream echoing in her ears. If Poe Dameron could afford positivity, then she would borrow some of it. He seemed to have it to spare.

They stayed long enough to get the Falcon as space-worthy as she’d been in twenty years. Chewbacca ruthlessly ripped out every junkyard modification, and Rey tried to point out any that he might not notice. Rey's attempt to clear a box of junk out of the common room led to Chewbacca throwing a fit - apparently some of the junk had emotional significance - so instead she focused on repairing the internal systems. She knew they were on their last legs. General Organa wouldn’t set foot on the ship, but she directed the quartermaster to approve any and all requests for supplies that Rey or Chewbacca made. 

Rey made most of these requests, although she discovered that Chewbacca had made at least one of his own, when a Resistance member Rey had never seen before, an abednedo who introduced himself as Orro, showed up to take her measurements. Her new clothes were delivered two days later, and she was surprised to find that they were based on the structure of her old clothes, rather than following the Resistance uniform she’d seen others wearing. Orro nodded encouragingly at her, and she thanked him. How to explain that she’d only just realized she’d been dressing herself the way some forgotten parent had dressed her for 15 years? The fabric was heavier, but still felt familiar, and she found she was glad of it. 

Chewbacca growled in approval when he saw her in it for the first time, made a comment about how she’d begun to stink. Which, frankly, from a Wookiee, was  _ hilarious. _ She snorted, and realized that making her laugh had been his intention.

A knocking sound came from the ramp. Chewbacca roared in response.

“I, uh, don’t know what that means,” came the reply.

Poe was standing at the end of the ramp, dressed in what she guessed passed for civilian clothes, hands in his pockets. BB-8 was at his feet. “It means come in,” she said. Poe started up the ramp. “Hello,” she said to BB-8 when it reached the top and rolled a happy little orbit around her feet. “Is Finn alright?” she asked Poe. He was, aside from BB-8, the only thing she and Poe had in common.

He smiled crookedly. “As alright as he’s been.”

“Oh,” she breathed. “That’s good, isn’t it?”

“Well, I gotta think it’s not bad,” Poe said. He was inside the Falcon now, glancing around curiously. “The Millennium Falcon,” he said under his breath, and then, more loudly, “she’s a legend.”

“She is,” Rey agreed. “We were about to take her up on a test flight, actually.”

“Were you?” Poe asked, too innocently.

Rey bit back a smile. “Would you like to come along for the ride? You too, of course,” she added in BB-8’s direction.

“Absolutely,” Poe grinned. BB-8 agreed somewhat more reluctantly.

“Our first time up was a little bumpy,” Rey explained to Poe. “This should be much better, BB-8.” She led them to the cockpit, where Chewbacca was waiting in the copilot’s chair.

“Chewie,” Rey pulled up in the doorway in surprise. Poe bumped into her. “But aren’t you--?”  

Chewbacca rumbled. He’d already shed all over the copilot’s chair, he said. Which was--well, it was true.

“If you’re sure,” Rey said, and Chewie rumbled again, reiterating. “Alright.”

She settled into the captain’s chair. She figured it was rude not to translate for Poe, but he didn’t ask, so she left it be. They went through the preflight checks without any issues, so she radioed operations. “Strap in, BB-8,” she said, and heard the whirring of the droid’s cables, “we’re taking her up.”

And then they were airborne. Rey took them gently higher, going above the treeline, and then climbing through the stratosphere. Chewie growled what amounted to “let’s go already” and Rey grinned and rocketed them up through the upper atmosphere until the only thing ahead of them was black. Black and stars.

“She sounds great,” Poe commented from the back, and Chewie roared in agreement. 

“She does,” Rey added, for good measure. “Let’s put her through her paces.” 

She wasn’t showing off, not really. It had just been so long since she’d had a chance to have fun flying a ship. She thought back to the days on Jakku she’d spent stuck inside when a sandstorm swept through, how she’d go hours on end glued to her computer, running simulation after simulation. Trying to figure out how badly she needed to screw up a flight before she couldn’t come back from it. She knew her abilities, that’s all.

It was a little bit showing off.

Poe whooped from behind her as she dropped them hard back into D’Qar’s atmosphere, letting them plummet before pulling up in a thoroughly unnecessary corkscrew. It was showing off, and she knew her audience.

The Falcon held up well throughout, and after an hour in the sky, complete with two short hyperspace jumps just to check, they landed back at the base.

“Good as she’s going to get, I think,” Rey said to Chewbacca, who nodded in agreement.

“Man, you are some pilot,” Poe said when Rey turned towards him. BB-8 rolled into the doorway and beeped at him. Rey laughed and Poe’s face made a complicated expression. “I don’t know if I’d say she was  _ better, _ buddy,” he protested.

“Oh, no,” Rey said. “Definitely not.” She’d never seen him fly, but Finn had raved about their escape in the TIE fighter. Plus, it was pretty much impossible to spend any amount of time on the Resistance base and not hear about Poe Dameron, greatest pilot they had. “You’ve had so much more experience than me, for one thing,” she offered.

Poe made the complicated face again. “Thanks. I think.”

That evening in the mess, Poe waved Rey over. Rey wasn’t used to lingering over food. She wasn’t really used to having food to linger over. She usually took her portion back to the Falcon and shoveled it into her mouth while fixing something. But they were officially out of things to fix for the time being, so she walked over.

She recognized most of the faces at the table as Poe’s fellow X-wing pilots. She saw them often enough on the tarmac and in the hanger, but hadn’t really taken the time to introduce herself. Introductions were another thing she wasn’t good at. Fortunately, Poe took up the cause.

“Everyone, this is Rey. Rey, these are the best pilots in the Red and Blue Squadrons.” The blonde-headed woman sitting next to him elbowed him, so he continued with a wince, “and this is Captain Karé Kun, leader of Stiletto Squadron, who sometimes slums it with us.” Poe made room between himself and the dark-haired human next to him. “Scooch over, Snap.”

Rey sat between them.  The other man nodded at her. “Temmin Wexley,” he said. “Heard you’re going after Skywalker.”

Rey swallowed the bite she’d taken. “I am.”

“Good luck,” snorted another dark-haired human across the table.

“Testor,” Poe said mildly.

“I’m just saying, he’s the last living Jedi, if he wanted to be here, he’d be here.” She gestured with her mug. “I want the guy found as much as anyone else--he was a hell of a pilot, back when.”

“We all know about your crush on Skywalker, Jess,” Wexley said.

“You shut up,” she pointed at him, but there was no heat in it. 

“We’re nice people, honest,” Poe told her.

“Mm-hmm,” Rey replied. She lifted up her plate to lick it, then glanced up to find one of the pilots who hadn’t introduced himself staring at her. She slowly put the plate back down. To her right, Poe ripped off a piece of bread and used it to sop up some of the juices on his plate, then popped it in his mouth. Rey did that instead.

“So, you’re off tomorrow?” The woman on Poe’s other side, Captain Kun, spoke up.

“In the morning,” Rey nodded.

“We’ll be there to see you off,” Poe said with a smile.

“Oh,” Rey said. “That sounds nice.”

There was a sense of community on the base that Rey was uncomfortable with. She’d skirted the edges of it, spending most of her time on the Falcon, or sitting with Finn. General Organa had commandeered an afternoon, but they were both so raw from Han’s death that very little was said. She was in the midst of it at the table in the mess, though, surrounded by people who knew each other inside out, their comments and jokes flying over her head. She focused on her empty plate.

“So it’s tomorrow,” she told Finn. “It has to be me, I guess. I want it to be me. I need to know what it all means, Finn. What I can do.” She studied his still face. Imagined she could hear the thrum of his blood beneath his skin. “I wish you’d wake up,” she whispered. “I’ve never had an adventure without you before. What if I mess it up?”

She rested her hand on his, resisted the urge to grab it and hold tight. She wouldn’t mind if he took her hand now.

She’d been sleeping on the Falcon. They had offered her a bed on the base, but sleeping in anything but a hammock was so uncomfortable that she figured she might as well try to get used to a berth. Sitting next to Finn, she realized that going back to the Falcon was the last thing she wanted to do that night. The chair she was in was not designed for comfort, but she tucked her legs up underneath her and curled up as best she could.

She started awake when something touched her shoulder, kicking out instinctively. 

“Whoa!” came a voice.

She spun to see Poe standing there, hands in the air. “Oh, it’s you,” she said. “Sorry.”

“It’s alright,” he said, studying her. “You were shivering.”

Rey realized that he’d put something on her when he’d touched her, and looked down to find a familiar brown jacket. “Finn’s jacket,” she said, running her hand down it. “He gave it to me to wear in the snow.”

“I’m glad,” Poe said, and Rey remembered that it had been Poe’s first. She examined it, expecting to see burn marks on its shoulder and back, but they were gone, patched carefully with slightly-newer looking leather. “I fixed it,” Poe said. “Well, Orro helped.”

“That’s good.” Rey draped it over the arm of the chair she was in. “He should have something he knows. When he wakes up.”

“That’s what I thought, too.”

Rey sat up suddenly. “What time is it?”

“Early,” Poe said, eyes on Finn, hands in his pockets. “You’ve got time yet.”

“Do you often come in here this early?”

Poe glanced at her. “Sometimes.”

Rey thought that was good, too. It probably meant that Poe wasn’t sleeping as much as he ought to, but she was selfish enough to appreciate that someone else was worrying about Finn.

She stood and stretched. “This chair isn’t comfortable,” she said, and Poe chuckled knowingly.

“No, it is not.”

“I’ll be back again before we leave,” Rey told Finn. She took a few steps away, and then stopped. “Could you--” she started to ask. Poe looked at her patiently. She tried again. “Will you keep visiting him? And talking to him?”

Poe smiled at her, none of the cockiness in his usual grin on display. “Absolutely.”

Rey nodded. It was still terrible, but knowing someone would be here made it a little easier. She headed for the refresher.

She showered and ate before heading back to see Finn again. Poe was gone, as she’d expected, but to her surprise she found General Organa waiting. It was the first time Rey had seen her in anything other than fatigues with her hair twisted around her head, and her blue dress and piled-high up-do seemed disconcertingly out of place in the quiet med bay. Rey stopped at her side, but the general nodded towards Finn. “Take your time. I’ll wait out here.”

She was as certain as she’d ever been that leaving was right. Still, she wished she could stretch out this last moment with Finn for weeks. But she thought about Poe, cheerfully telling Finn all about the things they’d do once he’d woken up, and she did the only thing left to her. She kissed his brow, and said goodbye.

“We’ll see each other again. I believe that.”

“Walk with me,” General Organa said to Rey as she emerged. They headed in the direction of the tarmac, Rey marking her steps with her stick. It had made it all the way to D’Qar on the Falcon without her, a fact she was absurdly glad of. “Luke is my brother,” the general said. A pause stretched, so Rey cleared her throat.

“General?”

“Leia,” she corrected. “Please call me Leia. Luke is my brother,” she began again, “but I haven’t seen him in a long time. What happened with Ben was terrible, but before it, Luke was a good man. Courageous. A patient teacher. I have to believe he can be those things again.”

They’d reached the tarmac, and Rey could see a crowd gathered. Everyone seemed to be as dressed-up as Leia. Even Poe was wearing a uniform and looking neat. Rey could just make out Chewie heading up the ramp into the Falcon.

Leia stopped them as they neared the crowd. “Rey,” she said. “Don’t let him turn you away. It’s been long enough.” She looked past Rey, seeing something that Rey instinctively knew wasn’t there. “It has to be.”

BB-8 rolled up to them and beeped in inquiry. Both Rey and Leia smiled down at the droid. Leia squeezed Rey’s hand, and Rey took it for the dismissal it was.

She looked at the crowd, taking in the faces she knew. Orro nodded at her. Jessika Pava sent her a wave. Poe caught her eye and winked. It wouldn’t be so bad to come back to this, Rey thought. If Finn woke up and wanted to stay, it wouldn’t be so bad. 

  
It still felt wrong, as they took off, to be leaving Finn. But she looked at the black ahead of her, her stomach dropping in a thrill of uncertainty. It was alright, not knowing. That thrum of Force she could feel all the time now hummed in her bones. She leaned on the hyperspace lever, urging the Falcon slowly into it, and watched as the stars blurred into blue.

**Author's Note:**

> I HAVE A LOT OF EMOTIONS ABOUT REY


End file.
